What’s your opinion on the system of having staff accompany students in the school cafeteria?

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As the saying goes, it’s hard to please everyone. The student cafeteria has always been a key focus and a challenge in a school’s logistics efforts. With food safety incidents occurring frequently these days, how can we ensure the safety and satisfaction of students when it comes to their meals? The Guangdong Provincial Department of Education has recently introduced a policy of school leaders dining with students, hoping to use this approach of \"going to the grassroots level to experience daily life\" to address the issue of students’ meals. This document, titled “Regulations of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Education on Supervising School Student Canteens,” will come into effect on January 1, 2016. The document states: \"In order to fully implement the school’s responsibility for food safety, further refine the food safety responsibility system with the principal as the primary person in charge, standardize the daily management of canteens, improve the quality of meals served there, enhance the level of food safety on campus, and ensure the healthy growth of students, this system has been formulated in accordance with the relevant food safety regulations at the ** and provincial levels, taking into account the actual conditions of our province.\" ” The reporter observed that the documents applied to the student canteens in schools of all levels and types across the province (i.e., higher education institutions and primary and secondary schools, excluding childcare facilities), requiring the establishment of a system in which school administrators take turns accompanying students during meals. Among them, primary and secondary schools should arrange management staff at or above the middle level to dine with the students, while all school canteens must have management staff present to dine with the students every day. For universities with numerous campuses and canteens, the document also specifies that at the campus where the school’s administrative department is located, middle-level or higher management staff from that administrative department should accompany students during meals; at other campuses, middle-level management staff from the departments based there can be assigned to do the same. Universities with a large number of student cafeterias can arrange for them to take turns serving as companion cafeterias, ensuring that at least two cafeterias provide such service each day, with each cafeteria offering this service more than 20 times per semester. As the person primarily responsible for safety, the principal is required by the regulations to participate in these meal sessions – school leaders should attend such meals at least once a month, and no fewer than four times per semester. The format can be determined based on the specific circumstances of each school, such as through a system where the principal has lunch with students. Can a separate private room be arranged for the principal to have meals together? Of course not! The regulations state that those who accompany the students should line up with them, pay for the meals, and eat in the same area. School leaders accompany students during meals; not only do they eat together, but more importantly, they assess the appearance, taste, and quality of the food, supervise matters related to food safety in the cafeteria on that day, and record the opinions and suggestions of the students who are eating there. If students experience symptoms such as dizziness, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, or drowsiness after eating the food served in the cafeteria, they need not worry about not having a place to complain about it, because if it is indeed caused by the cafeteria food, those who ate together with them will most likely suffer from similar symptoms as well. This system provides clear regulations for such situations, requiring those who accompany students during meals to inform the school’s department in charge of meal supervision immediately, so as to stay informed about the situation of students eating in the same cafeteria, and to take action in accordance with the school’s plans for dealing with food safety issues. Feedback sounds: As soon as this document was released, parents and students had both positive comments and praise. Mr. Wu, a parent of elementary school students: “The children are still young; regardless of whether the food is tasty or not, it’s sometimes even difficult to determine whether there are any issues with eating it. As parents, we can’t see what’s going on, and when the children feel unwell, we’re not sure if it’s related to the cafeteria or not.” In the future, when administrative staff eat together, there will always be an extra pair of eyes watching over things, which is a good thing! ” Xiao Pan, a junior female student: “Actually, the quality of the food in our school cafeteria is pretty good, and there are quite a few options. It would be great if the prices could be more affordable, as there are quite a number of students from low-income families. I wonder whether having school leaders eat at the cafeteria could help solve this problem.” ” Learning from Others: In September 2013, the Education Bureau and the Food and Drug Administration of Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, issued a joint order requiring that all schools that provide meals for students implement a system in which school leaders also eat meals with the students. This move sparked a lot of discussion; some public comments stated that: \"In Mr. Qian Zhongshu’s novel ‘Fortress Besieged,’ the ‘Sanlu University’ also tried to implement this idea, but without success. It seems that life is sometimes even more bizarre than novels.\" The intention to prioritize food safety is excellent, but it must be based on laws. To restrict a person’s freedom to eat where and when under the pretext of safety is an overstep of the rules for short-term gains; it is using policies in place of laws. Does that mean, to prevent prisoners from dying in prison, the head of the public security bureau has to be locked up as well? To prevent the bridge from collapsing, must the construction site supervisors live under the bridge? ” News link: In November 2014, some students at a vocational school in Guangdong protested in their dormitories by throwing trash and creating noise, among other actions, due to dissatisfaction with the high prices of meals in the cafeteria. The school responded by saying that it had reduced the prices at the cafeteria in response to the students’ demands, and that the incident was instigated by some of the students who were expelled; the situation has been reported to the police.